World

A journalist working for Syria’s pro-regime Dunya TV was shot dead on Friday while reporting on clashes in a regime-controlled area in the northern city of Aleppo, the channel said on its website. Dunya TV said it had received news of...

The oldest Swiss bank, Wegelin & Co., is wrapping up an existence that has spanned more than 270 years after pleading guilty in a US case involving Americans who hid funds in secret accounts abroad. Wegelin, which was founded in 1741 and...

From midday on, girls decked out in miniskirts, high heels and lip gloss jiggle their hips in front of a huge mirror in a Bangui nightclub, open because of a curfew as rebels threaten the Central African Republic’s capital. Men sit on...

The story of a cat who visits his master’s tomb and brings him little presents on an almost daily basis a year after the man’s death has moved the inhabitants of a village in central Italy. “He brings little twigs, leaves,...

The number of visitors to the World War II Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp soared to a record 1.43 million in 2012, the museum at the site in southern Poland said Friday. “This is a record in the 65-year history of this museum. We’ve...

The boyfriend of a 23-year-old woman who died after being brutally gang-raped on a New Delhi bus spoke for the first time Friday about the savagery inflicted on her and his failed efforts to intervene. “What can I say? The cruelty I saw...

Argentina plans to give out 82 million condoms nationwide in 2013 in a campaign against sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, the health ministry said Friday. The condoms will be handed out at health centers, schools, prisons, bars and...

Gay clergy in civil partnerships will be allowed to become bishops if they are sexually abstinent, according to new policy The Church of England has agreed that gay clergy in civil partnerships can become bishops so long as they remain sexually...

The Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education has been discharged from the British hospital treating her, a hospital spokeswoman said on Friday. Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England,...

A slender majority of Israelis support the creation of a separate Palestinian state, but do not have high hopes for a peace deal, a survey said on Friday. The survey by daily Israel Hayom asked more than 800 Israelis “do you support or...

Hong Kong said Friday it had seized more than a tonne of ivory worth about $1.4 million in a shipment from Kenya, the city’s third big seizure in less than three months. Customs said they seized the 779 pieces of ivory tusk, weighing 1.3...

Ihsan Ghaidan, a policeman in one of Iraq’s most volatile provinces, admits he stands little chance of promotion and notes his performance is increasingly under the microscope, for one simple reason — he is overweight, and...

After nearly three weeks of lurid reporting on a horrifying gang-rape in New Delhi, women in the Indian capital say they are more anxious than ever, leading to a surge in interest in self-defence classes. New Delhi has long been known as the...

Venezuela accused the international media of waging a “psychological war” over President Hugo Chavez’s health to try to destabilize the government and bring down its socialist revolution. The hardline stance was adopted after...

A total of 6,602 political detentions were recorded in Cuba in 2012, a 60 percent surge from a year earlier, a rights watchdog said. In December alone, such arrests — ranging from several hours to several days — reached 567 on this...